Blog Away. PORGY & BESS, Showboat: The Dangerous Face of Art
For much of my life I've been aware there was this culturally bang-on, near erudite piece of Theatre, Porgy and Bess. I'd better tune up my sensibilities, be on-the-button and sharp: see this, and drink from it as much as I'm able to understand.
Well I've long nurtured the idea that I'd get hold of all the big Hollywood and Broadway musicals and the like and have just a beano. Several weeks ago I bought a 20 CD set of such fare. Amongst them were the two shows headlined above.
Porgy & Bess is Rubbish. Quote me on that. The worthless is an everyday part of life. When it's meant to be iconic; when what is presented is just the betrayal of a race it's more serious. (Of course the 'joke' of it is that what you do is done to you but leave that aside for now). I somewhere read that the writer had gone down to live with the negro people. So he came away with the idea, and successfully sold the line that what he delivered was authentic.
Like a black man who has nothing being quite contented with that. And it's oh-so-witty that it saves him the cost and hassle of getting a lock for his door. And, don't you know, his woman, after enumerating his faults; the cliched stuff that might have come from a KluKluxKlan handout; she let's us know she's happy with the guy
'Darkies are like this and they don't mind'. And theatre people and other arty-folk have been getting away with this portrayal. As I write this I can't believe it but it's true.
As for Showboat, it contains the black anthem Ole Man River. It helped support Paul Robeson so there's that to be said for it. Only that.
But what comes across to me is an idea that lowered awareness of things - such as being like Ole Man River, that's the way to go. If you've ever seen an alcoholic or someone like that drifting downwards, you may have an idea what I'm driving at in being much annoyed
The above is compounded by the fact that there are some really nice in fact gorgeous bits in said musicals. Meanwhile selling us ideas every bit as vicious as the same that far-right thugs get locked up for for spreading abroad. Innocuous-like
How good, how excellent it would be if Porgy and Bess for certain, and the other one too were never ever put on again. And the black songs from them were just forgotten
So I'm commenting on the art of yesteryear. But nowadays also totally inauthentic content is given black actors. I was thinking that the answer was for blacks to be more prominent in getting what they do 'out there'.
And I've wondered several times about these novels and such one sees written by 2 and even 3 or more people. For the sake of Truth, for the sake of us all it would be just right that black bits are written by black rather than white people. What gets delivered to us are cartoon carbon cut-out people. And Lord help us, that stuff is held as right, as we see even Commendable
It's as I see it
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Comments
Hi Ed, Interesting point
Hi Ed,
Interesting point your trying to make, never been a fan of musicals just not my thing.
What i would like to add is with regards an article i read a few years ago, by Samuel L Jackson, concerning the animosity between Spike Lee and Quentine Tarantino to do with the film Jackie Brown. Apparently Spike was miffed that Samuel said that Tarantino could do a black film as good if not better than Spike.
So for me as long as the characters are portrayed accurately by black or white writers, then i'm ok with that.
Of course you're right. When
Of course you're right. When it's done badly though, boy does it grate. I've seen people fall for the poor substitute easily
not gonna argue
watch a film, who dies first? always the black guy/girl or the non hetero or whoever isn't white and beautiful and by virtue of the script heroic
love the matrix but its racist as hell (and hell i believe is racist, not through any fault of the devil but god has a habit of choosin the white folk for the big place upstairs)
i don't think that white writers cant write black characters and do it well, and vice versa. do think that white writers, and the industry, write too often to the stereotype. works the same for male/female writers and characters.
would argue that in general black writers write better white characters than the other way round, and female writers write better male characters. that a symptom of the power embedded socially and culturally in our lives.
should we do more to challenge this? yes. what should we do? um....
me, i think write whatever you want, be honest and tackle your own censorship and prejudice. probably quite a few people have done this but can they get published?
is the pope, as they say, protestant?